So Barack recharged his batteries, spent some time with his foreign Hawaiian family in the exotic country of Hawai`i, and despite spending a whole week out of the country, his campaign didn't collapse.

When he left for vacation in his birth state a week ago, ahead of the convention season, the Illinois senator had a three-point edge over McCain in the Gallup Daily tracking poll.

By Thursday, as Obama packed his bags to fly back to the US mainland, his Gallup lead was still three points -- 46 percent to 43.

The moving average failed to budge despite a rhetorical onslaught by McCain on the crisis in Georgia, as the Republican's campaign scented an opportunity to hammer Obama on his perceived weak spot of foreign policy.

By the way, Obama has now travelled to 49 states. All that is left is the exotic country of Alaska. He visits the Final Frontier at his own peril. Cokie might have another aneurysm.

I had a conversation last night and a friend told me that the VP would be Wesley Clark. Why? Because all these other candidates have been trotted out by the media and she believes it is a red herring and will be Clark. Furthermore, he has NO PROBLEM attacking McCain on his record and stance on military issues. He has been the one surrogate who has rattled McCain publicly.

I like Kaine of Virginia, but I would not be disappointed in General Clark, plus the Obama Campaign are extremely disciplined, they could have vetted him already without anyone's knowledge.

The Obama camp is pushing a new theme in Pennsylvania tomorrow -- it's called the "Buy American, Vote Obama" campaign.

Here's the new logo, to be unveiled tomorrow and to appear on stickers and flyers in select towns around the state.

According to an Obama aide, the new effort dovetails with a renewed push by the Obama team in Pennsylvania to poke fun at John McCain's recent claim that he would rather hear the roar of "50,000 Harleys" than the cheering of 200,000 Berliners.

As the Obama camp was quick to point out, McCain opposed legislation that would have forced the U.S. government to buy American-made motorcycles. continue

::

and.............

Obama Campaign blast latest "celebrity ad".....time for the Obama Campaign to start calling the McCain Campaign what they are, "liars"...............

Hillary gets her vote on the floor.....my take, "When is all about me going to be over", period.......

I will post the Rick Warren forum video up this evening when available, this is the forum that Obama and McCain will be participating in today at Saddleback Church in California. This forum will be live on all the cable stations this evening, check your listing.

Friday, August 15, 2008

I received some emails and comments of the "bodysurfing" pictures I posted, yesterday. That Obama should not do it, GOP will attack him. I responded, "If they do, they will end up looking RIDICULOUS, ask the folks in Florida, California."

First off, Barack Obama is a candidate for President of the United States. Everything he does, his family does is news, period. The Obama Family knows this. Plus, Obama said he was going bodysurfing, which in Hawai'i is a poor man's sport. Don't believe me, price surfboards.

For McCain to attack Obama going home, yes, Hawai'i is his home and where he grew up is just sad. You mean to tell me that McCain can't talk about what he is going to do as president but is a cynical stalker on everything Obama? Because that is what his campaign has become. Hell, he can't even get any traction in the media, but only by attacking. When is he going to explain his raggedy assed record, continued flip/flops to the American public? Because we are waiting.

Lastly, how in the hell do you bodysurf? It surely is not with a shirt on. The McCain Campaign takes pride in being IGNORANT. I live in Chicago and they body surf in Lake Michigan, they body surf in the Gulf of Mexico and in the Atlantic, so this is nothing NEW.

It is just after being dumbed down as a nation with Bush, we now have an intelligent democratic candidate and one who is in shape, physically, that he must be criticized for bodysurfing in the water? This does not make any sense. What is needed is the capacity to deal with the vigorous job as President of the United States. It is a physical and mental job. This is all part of the job pre-requisite and is a requirement. One which 72 year old John McCain has a problem passing. Just look at him. Nuff said on that one.

The mess of the Kilpatrick's indictments and repeatedly hauled back into court, in front of a judge, plus wearing a ankle monitor device is only a result in, "Kwame, bro just stay HOME, your vote NOT NEEDED."

Personally, I don't know what Kilpatrick will gain being in Denver. As of now he is a leech, meaning on the level of John Edwards. Bro, they just don't want your drama soiling the party.

Obama is right to uninvite Kilpatrick, because he really needs to RESIGN.

Warren is the pastor of the Saddleback Church and is the moderator of the forum, Saturday evening featuring Obama and McCain.

But he has quite a bit to say about the Edwards infidelity. Yes, many of us are tired of it, we should be but the basis of why people are angered is not the "sex" part but the "trust" part. When you trust someone and they betray the trust, it is hard to "get over it".

TAPPER: Would you have compunctions about voting for someone who had cheated on his wife?

WARREN: Absolutely I would. Absolutely I would. Because if you can’t keep your faith to your most sacred vow – “’til death do us part” -- how in the world can I trust you to lead my family? My government? My nation?...Absolutely I would. I think people first need to ask forgiveness and then earn trust back over time Can trust be re-earned? Absolutely but it takes time.

OUCH. And the GOP want to keep hammering "Edwards" when McCain did the "Same Thing"?

Barack Obama will not be swiftboated, ya' heard???? And Amen to that one.

All you have to do is watch Corsi's performance from Larry King last night. The man was shot down. If you don't know what I am talking about it is the book, "Obama Nation", from the same inaccurate author who wrote the totally misinformed book on John Kerry in 2004.

The mo-fo 527 leeches are coming out early and expect, from now on, often. This man is being blasted by the book community and in all realms. The Obama Campaign will have a response person up on every media event, as they should.

Steve Smith, a spokesperson for the AFL-CIO, tells me that the union will be striving to reach out to more than a million union retirees in coming weeks.

"In key battleground states, the retiree vote is going to be crucial in the presidential race," Smith says. "Our research -- polling, focus groups -- indicates that many seniors still are unaware of John McCain's record in support of privatization and plans to drastically reduce benefits."

The mailer will go out tomorrow to 50,000 retirees in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan, and more mailings will soon be dropped in those states, where the union is also planning a series of Social Security events.

::

New Olympic Ad

This ad will go into rotation with the current ad already playing, "Hands".

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

I have noticed that the Obama Campaign have created these various television and radio ads to target different states in the country.

My take? Totally cool. Each state is different, unique. Sure, we all are hit with the generic stuff like jobs, gas prices, etc. But each state/region have specific problems or worries. Meaning, you don't put them all in the same bag. I don't see the McCain Campaign doing this. They are not innovators, they are the same old stuff that does not excite me. I will give them credit for the Britteny and Paris ad. I think Obama took a hit, but it was temporary because in the long run, those ads don't mean anything. Who cares about Britteny and Paris? Unless you can link Obama directly and the McCain Campaign can not. Plus, Paris' reply was classic.

So, the only thing left is the negativity game. They are going to run race bating, scurrilous ads after the convention. We just have to work our asses off.

Still in all, this does not endear me to the Clintons, at all. Sorry, it doesn't. We can all faux love each other, kiss-kiss, but that does not mean I am not looking behind my back for that knife. Ya dig? As for Mark Penn, if McCain wins in November it will be the "I told you so" line because McCain is taking the Penn/Clinton playbook and running with it.

One of the fun things about writing a controversial piece like the one we posted yesterday on the collapse of the Clinton campaign is the ensuing flurry of ungrounded pronouncements about this or that major character. If you watch cable or read liberal blogs, you’ve no doubt gotten the impression that former Clinton chief strategist Mark Penn is finished in politics, owing largely to this memo suggesting that Clinton target what he calls Obama’s “lack of American roots.” Not only do I suspect these commentators are jumping to premature conclusions, but one obvious scenario could bring Penn back rather quickly—and right into the middle of Obama’s campaign.

For years, Penn and his wife, Nancy Jacobson, have been close advisers to Indiana Senator Evan Bayh. Jacobson put together Bayh’s finance team during his aborted presidential bid, and previously served as national finance chair for the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC). Penn was the DLC’s longtime pollster and worked for Bayh during his last Senate race. The couple has also been associated with Third Way, the centrist think tank Bayh helped organize in 2005 that many in Washington viewed as a vehicle for his presidential run (the DLC obviously belonging to Clinton).

Bayh gets major play in today’s New York Times for being on, and possibly even atop, Obama’s vice-presidential short list. He has many attractive qualifications. But in choosing Bayh, Obama would be pairing himself with someone awfully close to Mark Penn. Would it bother Obama’s people to have Penn whispering in their vice president’s ear? The official answer, conveyed by Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor, is “We aren’t commenting on the VP selection process.” The unofficial answer is, “You bet it would!”

And many in the liberal blogosphere are vehemently against Evan Bayh as Vice-President. Me, not crazy about the idea, but at this point it won't matter. Barack Obama is the top of the ticket, not Bayh, Kaine, Sebelius and the others. But, if I was Barack Obama, I would pause. Do you want this influence hanging around as thought in your White House?

“She’s a bit of a fool that’s the only thing you can say,” said Rep. Neil Abercrombie. ”Don’t forget Cokie Roberts and the whole Washington crowd live in a kind of an incestuous relationship to one another, they talk to one another, they see one another, they know nothing about ordinary people.”

Red-blooded American males respond, forcefully, when someone accuses them of being un-American. (And hidden within this attack is some subtle racism as well since, you know, Obama's people are dark and from "exotic" dark-skinned places like Hawaii, and some of his ancestors were Muslim, and you know what that means.) It all adds up to someone who won't put their country first. And that kind of person is an un-American traitor.

At some point people need to see that Obama can get angry, that he has an inner "asshole." That he can defend himself. That he can be a man. And considering that this is the third time that McCain has basically called Obama un-American, Obama ought to publicly slam McCain and this theme down, hard, now.

Now Lieberman is out there, with full endorsement of McCain using this tactic. It is about McCain being the "real American, who puts America first" meme. Remember, all about making Barack Obama un-american.

Keep an eye on this and call it for what it is, nasty campaign tactics.

This is B.S. Okay? Now that Mayor "Yawz Boy" Kwame Kilpatrick is a piece of work, for sure. And he needs to resign, for sure. But Obama did not endorse his mother, Congresswoman Carolyn Kilpatrick, who almost lost in the primary and his response to the Mayor has been tepid, at best.

Everyone can agree that the John Edwards mess is distasteful, shocking (to a point) and reeks of hypocrisy. Nuff said.

But these blowhard Republicans need not go on ANY TALK NUT SHOW and blast Edwards when McCain got his second wife, almost the same way!!

It is public knowledge that while John McCain had a sick first wife and children at home, he was running after tail of the 20-something, Cindy Hensley.

Yes, love prevailed. Isn't that lovely? It always does in these situations, but McCain while running around with Cindy and taking out a marriage license was still a very married man with children. And Cindy Hensley McCain should not be excused, she knew John McCain was married and still had her roll in the hay.

The point is this; the GOP need not even talk about anything that has the word "affair" attached. McCain is a flawed candidate on this account and admitted it. So, why the GOP needs to go down this road is beyond me.

Chris Wilson, Republican pollster, said, “(Edwards is) running for president on moral values. His wife has been diagnosed with cancer and yet this is a man that we’re going to trust of leading the free world? ...That’s why this is an issue.”

Hannity smacked his hands together as he said, “If you can’t keep a promise to your family, can’t keep a promise to your wife, you’re having an affair, you’re lying about the affair repeatedly. Why should the American people trust you when you say you’re not gonna lie to them? Why should we trust you?”

“That’s a great question Sean asked,” Colmes said as he began his turn. To conservative Amanda Carpenter, Colmes asked, “Amanda, if that’s true, you can’t trust somebody who had an affair, how can we trust John McCain to be president of the United States since he cheated, by his own admission, on his first wife? He didn’t keep his marital vows. He didn’t keep his pledge to his first family.”

That’s when the fireworks started. Carpenter dodged the question by saying it's an issue that has been thoroughly vetted. Wilson made the laughable claim that Edwards had attacked Clinton for cheating on his wife. Hannity had a major hissy fit (most likely because he had been caught red-handed with his own hypocrisy) and insisted that McCain’s behavior should be viewed through the lens of having returned home from being a POW.

And here is the video of Hannity and Colmes:

The MSM does not want to go into detail about John McCain, but I believe that tide is turning. After getting egg on its face on the John Edwards mess and validating the tabloid magazine, National Enquirer, who got the story right, they are not going to sit on the sidelines. If you want to continue to talk affair, as the media is, then you must throw John McCain's infidelity into the pot, too. You cannot examine one without the other, since both ran/still running for POTUS.

Nobody reading this gives a ratsass on who is doing whom. Who fucking cares, but as long as the media is running with this story, we must endure it or turn the channel.

As for Edwards, my point is this; he should have come totally clean on Friday and shut this story down. I mean all of it. It is just not Fox constantly reporting this; it is all the news organizations. Until that happens, yes we have to listen to this bullshit.

Finally, no this is not the detriment to Barack Obama. His name is not John McCain or John Edwards and we, as Democrats need to be happy a bullet was dodged.

Well, this is a very coveted spot and Obama is giving it to Mark Warner. Warner is the former governor of Virginia and the current democratic senate candidate for Virginia.

Many thought that this spot would be given to Clinton, but not.

Clinton, Hillary that is, will be a "Headline Speaker".

I don't care what anyone says, but there is not a lot of love lost between Clinton and Obama. Obama is being magnanimous, as he should and is bending over backwards to Hillary's divaness, but all this sh*t stops when he is pronounced, the Democratic Nominee.

As, for all the PUMA blowhards, many who are republicans in disarray are really far less than many imagine. Yes, they are effective for getting out their message, but they are not the majority. Remember that. Many democratic women know what is at stake for this election. The choice is crystal clear between Obama and McCain.

So, as we enter into a somewhat harmonious convention, we will walk away ready to defeat the Republicans and McCain. That you can put into the bank.

The proposal is this, there will be an open window for early voting between September 30-October 6, 2008. This will allow Obama to campaign HARD on college campuses in Ohio, get the students registered and to vote all on the same day.

Of the more than 470,000 students enrolled in Ohio's public colleges and universities in 2006, the most recent figures available, nine out of 10 were Ohio residents, the state Board of Regents said. To register to vote in Ohio, a person must be a resident of the state for at least 30 days immediately before an election.

This is a slam dunk, really it is. But of course, the Republicans are whining and they are the ones who created this loop hole.

The voting window, so far, is only being implemented in some counties — typically, urban areas or those with college campuses — leading Republicans to cry foul.

"The prospect of someone coming in with no ID and registering and voting is contrary to every sort of protection that legislators and lawmakers have built into this system for decades," said Kevin DeWine, a Republican lawmaker who is poised to take over the state party after the election. "The processes and the law and the systems in our 88 counties are not equipped to handle same-day registration."

People in Ohio can register without identification, but they have to show some sort of ID to vote.

State lawmakers accidentally made the window before the 2006 elections. Obama's campaign is eager to take advantage of it this year.

Remember the 2006 elections? When the Republican regime in Ohio was kicked out? Well, they created this loophole, so they only have themselves to blame. The Democratic regime is only implementing it.

Maybe, probably, surely expect lawsuits for this but I don't think it will be successful. Many states now have early voting. I have been early voting in Illinois for some time now. So, adopting this for this election is nothing but excitement, especially for new and young voters.

::

Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) is a Dishonorable, Disgrace

::

Obama Raises $1.3 Million in Hawaii

Old friends and big donors greeted Senator Barack Obama and his wife, Michelle, at a fund-raiser here Tuesday night where the campaign took in $1.3 million — more than Mr. Obama has raised in the islands during his entire presidential campaign.

According to a pool report, a number of Mr. Obama’s friends and former high school classmates were among the 500 people who paid at least $2,300 for a ticket to the event that was held at the Kahala Hotel and Resort, a beach-front property here.

“I’ve got friends here who have just been lifelong friends, people who have seen me through thick and thin, in tough times and in good times,” said Mr. Obama, who grew up in Hawaii and is on a week-long vacation here that ends Friday. continue

GOP attacking Obama for going on an "elitist" vacation

The Republican Party is ridiculous, utterly ridiculous and it started with the stupidity of Cokie Roberts, ABC insinuating that Hawai'i is an "exotic foreign country". For, ferks sake, Hawai'i is the 50th state of the union. So the concern trolls, called the Republican Party is sniffing at anything to use against Obama while he is in Hawai'i. But here are the FACTS:

First, Obama didn't choose Hawaii for its beautiful beaches. He spent much of his childhood there--including high school--and is returning mainly to visit his housebound 85-year-old grandmother, whom he hasn't seen since December 2006. As far as I can tell, there's nothing "highfalutin" about flying home for vacation. Unless family is only for elitists.

Second, even if Obama didn't have roots in Hawaii, the place isn't exactly an "elite" destination. Each year, the islands attract about 7.5 million visitors--most of them middle-class Americans. As the Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum notes, Hawaii "ranks right in between Disneyland and the Grand Canyon on the elitism meter, and probably a couple of notches below a visit to Yosemite." In other words, it's no Nantucket.

Third, the most "elite" aspect of Obama's Hawaiian upbringing--his time at the upscale Punahou School, which costs $17,000 a year--wasn't all that elite: the son of single mother, he attended on scholarship. (The same can't be said for John McCain, who spent his formative years at the exclusive St. Stephen’s School and Episcopal High in Alexandria, Va.)

Finally, Obama is staying in a rental property for the next week--which will probably prove less expensive than investing, like McCain, in a 6.6-acre, $1.1 million weekend getaway ranch in Sedona, Ariz. Or any of his six other houses.

So, if the Republicans really want to talk about elitism, we can talk about Cindy McCain's 750K a month AMEX bill, their 6 or 8 homes they own in some of the most prestigious and expensive areas in this country, the wealth in excess of over 100M of the McCains, etc. See we can go on and on. But play this card? All of it will be thrown back in your faces. Guaranteed.

::

Campaign Trouble Spots

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Two Bullets the Democrats Dodged: Hillary Clinton and John Edwards

As the Clinton Memos roll out and confirms what many thought and gave an insight to what type of management Clinton has, which was not much, makes many Democrats sigh in relief. All I can say is this; if Obama does not win in 2008 it will be hard for Clinton to be the nominee in 2012. Not with all we know, now.

And John Edwards a man who does not even know how to spell the truth, now all the speculation about that baby, when did Elizabeth know, etc. Edwards is a coward. He and only he could have ended this tawdry story on Friday. How? By telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. But he did not. He kept this story open by stating he is not the father of this child, will take a DNA test. Of course, the mistress is not taking a DNA test. Why? She is being paid to keep quiet.

Look, Edwards is still lying to his wife. He is the father of this baby but is too cowardly to admit it. This mistress was in a 3M Santa Barbara, CA home, no job, no means of wealth and since Edwards ABC interviews the mistress and baby has been "private jetted" away to an undisclosed location.

Democrats, we dodged a bullet on both of these candidates. No person is perfect, but after what we know NOW, we should be glad that Barack Obama is the Democratic Nominee.

::

and........................

Former Governor of Virginia, Mark Warner a candidate for the senate is the keynote speaker...........................

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